LOVE ONE ANOTHER
This is My Commandment, That Ye Love One Another--John
15:12
God is love. His whole nature and
perfection is love, living not for Himself, but to dispense life
and blessing. In His love He begat the Son, that He might give
all to Him. In His love He brought forth creatures that He might
make them partakers of His blessedness.
Christ is the Son of God's love,
the bearer, the revealer, the communicator of that love. His life
and death were all love. Love is His life, and the life He gives.
He only lives to love, to live out His life of love in us, to
give Himself in all who will receive Him. The very first thought
of the true Vine is love--living only to impart His life to the
branches.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
love. He cannot impart Christ's life without imparting His love.
Salvation is nothing but love conquering and entering into us;
we have just as much of salvation as we have of love. Full salvation
is perfect love.
No wonder that Christ said: "A
new commandment I give unto you"; "This is my commandment"--the
one all-inclusive commandment--"that ye love one another."
The branch is not only one with the vine, but with all its other
branches; they drink one spirit, they form one body, they bear
one fruit. Nothing can be more unnatural than that Christians
should not love one another, even as Christ loved them. The life
they received from their heavenly Vine is nothing but love. This
is the one thing He asks above all others. "Hereby shall
all men know that ye are my disciples...love one another."
As the special sort of vine is known by the fruit it bears, the
nature of the heavenly Vine is to be judged of by the love His
disciples have to one another.
See that you obey this commandment.
Let your "obey and abide" be seen in this. Love your
brethren as the way to abide in the love of your Lord. Let your
vow of obedience begin here. Love one another. Let your intercourse
with the Christians in your own family be holy, tender, Christlike
love. Let your thoughts of the Christians round you be, before
everything, in the spirit of Christ's love. Let your life and
conduct be the sacrifice of love--give your self up to think of
their sins or their needs, to intercede for them, to help and
to serve them. Be in your church or circle the embodiment of Christ's
love. The life Christ lives in you is love; let the life in which
you live it out be all love.
But, man, you write as if all this
was so natural and simple and easy. Is it at all possible thus
to live and thus to love? My answer is: Christ commands it: you
must obey. Christ means it: you must obey, or you cannot abide
in His love.
But I have tried and failed. I see
no prospect of living like Christ. Ah! that is because you have
failed to take in the first word of the parable--"I am the
true Vine: I give all you need as a branch, I give all I myself
have." I pray you, let the sense of past failure and present
feebleness drive you to the Vine. He is all love. He loves to
give. He gives love. He will teach you to love, even as He loved.
Love one another. Dear Lord
Jesus, Thou art all love; the life Thou gavest us is love; Thy
new commandment, and Thy badge of discipleship is, "Love
one another." I accept the charge: with the love with which
Thou lovest me, and I love Thee, I will love my brethren.
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